Smells Like
by 95Headhunter
Summary: Lost in thought after leaving Eden Prime, Kaidan Alenko finds some unexpected reassurance by the equipment lockers.


**Smells Like…**

**A/N: This little one shot came to me in the shower after a bonfire, washing the smell of smoke out of my hair and finding myself pondering Kaidan's oft quoted line, "smells like smoke and death". This got me thinking about all the little annoyances and chores the crew of the Normandy would have had to go through between missions, and that any one of them could have been as much of a platform for conversation as 'cleaning rifles' was in game.**

**As with all my stories, you won't hear any Shepard specifics, so you can all fit your own personal ideas about the Commander in. **

The cargo lift ground to a slow halt, its reinforced door sliding upwards with patience testing sluggishness. Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko stepped out of the lift, a collection of armour components draped over his shoulders and arms in various stages of disassembly. As he strode across the spacious cargo bay, largely devoid of activity, he paused briefly on reaching the row of equipment lockers. Facing him, an array of firearms splayed on a table before her, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams perched on a stool, a white ceramic cuirass on her knees. The young woman was lost in concentration, unaware of the man barely six feet away from her. Her face was set as she worked a sodden cloth over the smooth surface of the armour plating, and her left hand slowly reached for a bottle of pink disinfectant while the right continued to work.

The Gunnery Chief had been aboard the SSV _Normandy_ less than a day, but she had already found a comfort zone of sorts down here in the cargo bay. Years of training and dedicated service had ingrained in her a sense of necessity when it came to maintaining gear. So much so that it had become automatic, a mechanical process over which she no longer needed to exert much control. Kaidan knew the signs. There was something else in that expression of concentration beyond battlefield cleanliness.

"You OK, Chief?" Alenko asked softly. It was a stupid question, and he knew it as soon as the words crossed his lips. No person, soldier or not, would be 'OK' after what Ashley had seen only twelve brief hours ago.

"Huh?" Williams said dozily, looking up as she did so, her muscles tensing ever so slightly. "Oh, Lieutenant. I… didn't see you come in." She rose to her feet to fire off a hasty salute, the white armour clattering to the deck.

"At ease, Chief." Alenko replied, taken aback. As far as Captain Anderson was concerned, the two soldiers were off duty and Kaidan had assumed that would allow the ship's latest addition to switch off for a while. Apparently not. Still, these were hardly normal circumstances, the Lieutenant acceded. "I'm not checking up on you, just here to stow some gear."

"Oh. Sorry, sir." Williams replied, still somewhat distantly. She sat back on her stool, picking up her armour and continuing its maintenance.

"Is this what you've been doing the past three hours?" Alenko queried as he opened his locker.

"Well, I started on the weapons," Ashley replied, "rifles don't clean themselves. Not yet anyway."

"And the armour?" Alenko continued. "You weren't hit, were you?" A note of concern leaked into his voice.

"No." Williams shrugged. "I just like to keep it clean. It's kind of therapeutic, you know. Decon shower's too quick, washes the dirt off your body but it doesn't wash the battle off your mind. Cleaning armour helps me… Well, it just helps. The smell's the worst thing."

"The smell?" Kaidan asked, instinctively reaching for his own armour. As his nose neared the plating, it hit him like a blow to the head. It was that smell. The stench he had first noticed as his boots touched the ground of Eden Prime.

"Smoke." Ashley said with a resigned smile. "Stinks everything up." Kaidan's mind flashed back to the Maplewood bonfires he had helped build in his youth in Vancouver. No, this was nothing like the welcoming scent of a maple fire warming the dark winter months. The smoke that still clung to his armour carried with it a grim undertone that stung his nostrils, a stark reminder of what the tiny particles of burnt material had once been. It was not delicately placed maple timbers that had gone up in flames on Eden Prime, it was homes and farms, the chemicals of various ordnance, possessions and worst of all…

Corporal Richard Jenkins had been pale with shock as he had taken his first steps on his homeworld in months. His inevitable, bewildered question had initially gone unanswered.

"_Oh God! The Corporal said, mouth agape and forehead creased. "What happened here?" He asked the air uselessly, his fingers tight around the grip of his assault rifle and his eyes wide. Kaidan Alenko could reply only with what his senses reported to him. His ears told him of distant and indistinct gunfire, while his eyes saw only equally distant pillars of smoke rising above the obscuring terrain. His fingers felt numb encased in their protective, climate controlled gloves, responding only to a dull pressure from the grip of the pistol in his right hand, and the familiar curves of the omni-tool in his left. His mouth was dry, drawing in slow, controlled breaths as his legs began to sense the incline of the ground beneath them. Above all these sensations, there was one that assailed him with unparalleled ferocity. The sharp sting of smoke passing through his nostrils filled the Lieutenant with far more palpable terror than any other of his senses. He had seen his share of combat, but never before had he experienced a true battle. The tang of this evil, black smoke had only one connotation that did not require the confirmation provided by a prone, twisted figure slowly resolving itself in the distance. This was the smell of war, the smell of destruction. It was the smell of death._

_Jenkins' eyes slid away from the proud form of their leader and rested on Alenko's, swimming in sadness. _

"_Smells like smoke and death." Kaidan said simply. There was no hiding it. Whatever the reason for it, something evil had befallen the people of this spaceport community. Something that most had not escaped._

It was a sudden realisation for Kaidan Alenko on the deck of the cargo bay that those had been the last words Corporal Richard Jenkins had ever heard spoken. The very last word becoming a grim prophecy. Slowly, the blood drained from Alenko's face.

"I think it's my turn to ask, LT. Are you OK?"

"I'm… I'll be fine. I just never realised how much this stuff… lingers." Ashley's expression softened.

"I've seen combat before," Kaidan said, distantly, "Captain wouldn't have picked me for the op if I hadn't. I've seen people die, seen what a gunshot or my biotics can do to a person; I was hardly green dropping in today. But I've never lost someone under my command. Never lost a friend. Never seen the bodies of so many civilians. Certainly never seen…" Kaidan shuddered and trailed off as he recalled the warped bodies of what had once been living, breathing people impaled on giant spikes. He remembered the terror he had felt as those spikes had slowly descended into themselves, releasing the mechanically mutated bodies upon them. Mindless husks.

"Eden Prime was a new kind of hell for me too, sir. I've lost friends before, but my whole unit… I guess it all comes down to how you come to terms with it."

"Can't argue with that." Alenko shook his head slowly as he slumped to the floor opposite the Gunnery Chief. "So how do you deal with it?"

"I have a few ways," Williams replied, her eyes fixed on the seated biotic as her hands continued their slow motion across her armour. "Some are physical, I go for a run, hit the gym or... you know, when I can." She winked. "Some are spiritual, I... I pray." A touch of colour rose to her cheeks, and her foot moved in a way that suggested her toes were curling inside the boots. Williams was clearly a confident person, Alenko had noticed, unafraid to be herself, open. But religion had become a difficult subject in this age of scientific enlightenment and cynicism. Alenko understood her trepidation at bringing up, so many were uncomfortable among those who still embraced a traditional faith. Much to society's loss, Alenko thought bitterly, though he himself was not a religious man.

"Most of them are mental though." Ashley continued, a warm smile returned to her face. "Sometimes all you need is a stiff drink with some good friends, and sometimes you need some time by yourself. When things have been tough, I clean my armour. Clean armour, clean mind."

Alenko chuckled. It was such a simplistic notion, but perhaps because of that, he could no flaw in it. He did not want to forget Jenkins, or forget the lessons he had learned on Eden Prime, but he did want to forget the ghostly faces of the dead. Most of all, he wanted to forget that smell...

"Do you mind if I clean my armour with you?" He asked, attempting to reciprocate the Chief's ready smile.

"Sure." She beamed, "pull up a stool." The two said little as they worked, absorbed in the meticulous task. But Alenko found Williams' words ringing true. As he replaced the stinging reek radiating off the plating with the pleasant tang of disinfectant, some of the horrors he had witnessed melted away. He saw Jenkins not as an empty eyed corpse, contorted on pitted soil, but as the eager faced soldier drenched in the exuberance of youth, eyes shining with pride. And then there was Shepard, proud and resolute amid the encompassing desolation. Shepard, who now lay unconscious on a gurney. The Commander that had pulled him and the woman he hoped was becoming a new friend out of hell unscathed.

As Alenko finally completed his original objective in coming down here and stowed his gear, he turned to Williams, who was now restocking the weapons with new ammunition blocks.

"It's been nearly fourteen hours now," he said, concern lining his face, "I'm going to see Doctor Chakwas, check on Shepard. Do you want to come along?"

Ashley Williams looked down at the weapons on the table, as cold and emotionless as they were lethal. She looked back at her new immediate superior, the welcoming smile on his face diluted only by the worry that lined his eyes, the thoughts of _his_ superior. It was only then she realised that she too was worried for Shepard, the stranger who had fought tooth and claw to keep her from dying on Eden Prime, to preserve the memory of her unit. She sighed briefly. This was some ship she had found herself on. A war hero, a biotic and a potential Spectre. She smiled as Alenko raised his eyebrows, emphasising the hanging question.

"Sure." She nodded firmly. "Let's go check on the Commander."


End file.
